Fertility Ideals and Intentions: Theoretical Approaches and Empirical Results
Applying the theory of planned behaviour for the study of fertility and maritalintentions: case study of Bulgaria
Dimiter Philipov
This project uses recent survey data for Bulgaria, where the theory of planned behaviour was operationalised. The purpose is to study the influence of attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control on union formation intentions and fertility intentions. The project results in conference papers drafted together with Francesco Billari and Maria Rita Testa.
Fertility intentions and fertility outcomes in France
Maria Rita Testa
We study the transition to parenthood by looking at the childbearing outcomes, as depending on the stated fertility intentions and on several external constraints. The data come from a follow-up survey on fertility intentions carried out by the French statistical office INSEE over the period 1998-2003. Logistic regression models for wanting and having a first child are implemented separately. In the model for wanting a child various backgrounds and constraints are included as explanatory variables: sex, age, conjugal situation and duration, employment status (for both partners), education, religion, household income, and fecundity impairments previously experienced. In the model for having a child two additional sets of covariates are added: a) fertility intentions and exact timing of the desired childbearing; b) some aspects of fertility intentions, such as the firmness of intentions, the perceived likelihood to have a child and to change one’s mind, the perceived partner’s agreement in having or not having a child, and the perceived consequences of a child on the personal and partner’s work activity. The study evidences that the transition to a first child is influenced by external constraints, e.g. unemployment and marital status, as well as by the strength of the child desire, in particular by the subjective likelihood attributed to the possible future childbearing.
Fertility intentions in Europe
Maria Rita Testa
The study focuses on the relationship between the regional context of actual childbearing and the personal ideal family size in European countries (EU-15). The data show a hierarchical structure, with respondents embedded within regions of the EU countries. Two different statistical models are performed in order to investigate the factors affecting family size ideals: a multilevel logistic model for a family ideal with children; and a proportional odds model for a given number of children for those desiring at least one child. The individuals are assumed to be part of a complex system where the relations are defined in a contextual framework, and therefore personal individual preferences are explained by both micro-level variables and regional childbearing contexts. In particular, the mean number of children ever born to the older generations (aged 40 to 60) is used to identify the neighbourhood’s influence on the young generations’ ideals (aged 20 to 39). We argue that social interaction is responsible for the transmission/diffusion of fertility ideals from the older to the younger cohorts. The two multi-level models provide significant and consistent results: The proportion of childless people among the older generations in the region has a significant positive effect on the no-child family ideal, while the mean actual fertility of the older generations in the regions is positively correlated with the ideal number of children for those desiring at least one child.
Fertility preferences in West-Germany
Alexia Fürnkranz-Prskawetz, Frank Heiland, Warren Sanderson
This study investigates whether the negative relationship between fertility and education in more developed countries is due to a similar relation between desired fertility and education. Using rich individual-level data from the 1988 and 1994/95 waves of the DJI Familiensurvey, we find that more-educated West German men and women are significantly more likely to desire three or more children and less likely to favour childlessness or the one-child family compared to less educated individuals. Individual-level data from the EU-15 countries in 2001 confirm that this relationship holds not only in West Germany but more broadly in Western Europe. The existence of substantial unmet demand for children among the better-educated suggest that this group faces particularly difficult tradeoffs between career and family. Policies that favour the compatibility between career and family may be particularly effective in narrowing the gap between desired and realized family size for this expanding group.
Fertility intentions and outcomes: the role of policies to close the gap (FERTINT)
Dimiter Philipov, Maria Rita Testa, Tomas Sobotka
This is a one-year (2007) project at the European Commission, Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities DG. The objective of the project is to provide insights into a crucial dimension of fertility in European society, namely how people form their intentions with regard to childbearing and how and why these intentions are sometimes frustrated. Fertility is at an all-time low in Europe, and if the EU is to avoid long-term population decline, ways must be found to enable parents to fulfil their childbearing ambitions. The project will carry out research into five key questions:
- How are fertility intentions formed?
- How stable are these intentions?
- How do the intentions and outcomes relate to professional mobility?
- Why do intentions often remain unrealised?
- What role do social networks play?